Hurricane IKE - Florida Keys - September 8-9, 2008

Описание: During the first week of September, 2008 Hurricane Ike tore through the islands of Turks & Caicos and Great Inagua as a major hurricane, with sustained winds of 125mph, before making landfall on the north coast of Cuba as a low-end category four, with 130mph winds.

Ike crossed the eastern and central provinces of the Cuban mainland and moved offshore, paralleling the south coast of the island, making another landfall over the western portion of Cuba and emerging into the Gulf of Mexico.

The hurricane continued across the Gulf and made a final landfall near Galveston, Texas as a borderline category two/three, with 110mph winds, during the early morning hours of September 13th.

The hurricane caused extensive wind and storm surge damage in the affected areas, virtually obliterating several coastal communities on the Bolivar peninsula of the upper Texas coast.

With monetary losses over $31 billion (USD), Ike is now ranked as the third costliest hurricane in United States history.

From the afternoon of September 7th through the evening of September 9th, storm chasers Michael Laca, Jim Leonard, Jose Garcia and Max Hagen intercepted numerous outer rainbands, from Hurricane Ike, in the middle and lower Florida Keys, as the storm passed well to the south.

At the time of Ike's closest point of approach to the Keys, the hurricane was a category one with sustained winds of 80mph and a central pressure of 965mb (28.50in).

Although the center of Ike remained a significant distance (150 miles) to the south, the hurricane had a very large windfield and produced sustained tropical storm conditions (39-73mph), with gusts of near hurricane-force, across most of the Florida Keys, which resulted in some minor wind damage.

These strong winds produced a 2-3ft storm surge in exposed locations on the Atlantic side of the lower Keys. During high-tide, many low-lying areas experienced significant flooding.

Numerous tornadic thunderstorms were also embedded within the outer rain bands of Hurricane Ike and several confirmed reports of tornadoes and tornadic waterspouts have been received from locations throughout the Keys.